Tend to thine own mirror and all mirrors then reflect yours

It has been quite a while since I had any inclination, inspiration, or energy to write. Today, I have some of that, but more so, a desire to express something that is bugging me today. This is a long post, so consider yourself advised. :-)

Today, I woke up to the morning sun filtering through a hanging crystal, shooting prismatic light all over me; and I realized; I don't have a social life, and very few friends. Over the course of about 5 months, I have become a hermit again.Sigh, and so in the ever present push / pull that is my struggles with the idea and feeling of friendship, kinship; I am on the "pull" phase. You would think that by now I would have made up my mind and picked a stable place in this particular continuum between hermit and social butterfly...

At the moment, I am being hit pretty hard emotionally - a hermit that desires to hang out with friends on a regular basis that is deeper than what you would get at a party. Yet, I see several channels of thoughts followed by action that have led me here; meaning it is my own damn fault and intent, haha!

A week or so ago, I was also in my "I hate humanity!" phase which is one of those channels. The core frustration that begets this phase is my continued frustration with not being in the flow with others in a group setting.

Let me explain: When I am in a group conversation, there is a certain flow or momentum going on, people are having a dynamic conversation, no interruptions, something is building up and everyone is going towards it organically. Oftentimes, I end up interrupting this flow because I am out of sync with this, either in thought, expression, or the others are saying their pieces and there is no gap whatsoever for me to chime in so I often then say past stuff WAY after the conversation moves on; or I chime in but accidentally interrupt somebody else (this happens very often) as they chimed in half a word prior to me. Other times after I share something, there is this awkward silence, and either the conversation moves on as if I said nothing; or it lingers and basically someone else has to restart the flow. It is not just present in conversations; it is also present in activities, such as dancing, or even helping out in an event, or even in a meeting. I don't get how this human dynamic works, how to get into it, how to go with it, none of it. A serious source of frustration. It also does not help that I also have hearing problems, which amplifies this issue.

As a result, I have a lot less desire to be around others in a group setting. The only group at the moment that I am less frustrated with in this regard is a cuddling group that happens once a week where there is no focus on talking, and the dynamics and flow aren't as intense. There was another group that is similar where we gathered to simply color and/or socialize; but at the moment I have not been participating in that group.

Another factor in all this is that lately, my longstanding trigger I have has been happening all over the place. Whenever I start to care about someone else past a certain level; I will start to have the emotions of intense hurt, jealousy, anger, and sometimes resentment whenever I am near that person. Another situation that brings up the same trigger is when I see people being loving towards each other. It used to happen with certain people; but lately, it has been happening everywhere. I am actually Grateful for this development because it helped me realize that it is NOT because of my relationship with certain people; rather, it is something in me that wants to be addressed and it is now affecting all relationships with anybody I care about past a certain point. I disfavor feeling this way, and have fears that it is transparent or perceivable by others, so I tend to avoid that situation - with obvious results towards being a hermit.

The third factor or channel, is that I grew up moving around very often, so I had to uproot - terminate friendships, start new ones, over and over again, and it had two results. One of which was that I came to love travel and value discovery, wonder, and getting to know a new environment. The other result is that "friends" became a disposable thing to me. The uprooting thing has continued to persist into my adult life, long after I stopped being raised by my mother; so unconsciously, whenever I meet new people, I tend to accelerate how much I share, or get to know them, but then stop at a certain point because if I develop it, it is just that much more painful whenever I leave that place; they move on; or they drop out of my life or we become de-synchronized. There were a few times when I have attempted to develop things past that "acquaintance" point, with people in a professional environment; or an actual friendship, only to find out later on that they are suddenly not friends, or non-responsive to me when I reach out. There have been a few friends that I also forcibly disconnect from, thinking that "oh crap, this is going to hurt later on, may as well get it overwith now!".

A fourth channel is, oftentimes I will perceive that I am not a friend's priority, or first on their list of people they would like to greet, or talk to. This is rather painful, so what ends up happening is that as a defense mechanism, I will not greet people first, and let them greet me first. There have been times when I greet someone, only to get a response that the greeting was not in kind, or an afterthought - I never know when somebody REALLY wants to talk to me as a friend. By letting others' greet me first, there is no question on whether or not they really want to talk to me.

Finally, a fifth channel that results when the other four are in play and I am well on my way to hermit mode is I start to get anxious again, and conversations with others become awkward. Then, I just do not want to talk to others, even when they want to talk to me, and I will keep the interaction short.It looks like a pretty exhaustive list that makes me want to be a hermit doesn't it? Yet.. illogically, and just as annoying, I *want* to be social, have friends, to not be a hermit, and it is intense enough that I can't just be a hermit and shun humanity. There are times when I do love humanity, and see all the wonderful benefits and growth that happens when I am around others.

What I have done in the past was that I would become a work-a-holic; and that was my second thought this morning - that I have been immersing myself in various forms of work lately. Back then, the result of doing that for several years was that I became a miserable person, and it was one of many factors that forced me to change up my life, and hence the pilgrimage.

In this kind of story wherein you committed a lot of stuff in your life, what’s important is you get the chance to learn from it. Actually, every mistake is a possible lesson where we should learn something from. I know that you had been through a lot, but we are sure that there are more to come. The difference of before and now is the fact that you already know what to do right now and you are going to face all of this with smile on your face because you worry less this time.

About Peter Trinh

Hi!

My name is Peter Trinh and I started a pilgrimage on the latter half of September 2013; after deciding that the way I was living my life turned unsatisfactory and I realized that if I wanted to change my life and get out of my perceived corner, that I needed to start changing myself from the inside out. I tied up all my affairs in California, sold almost everything I owned, and told my colleagues, clients, friends, and acquaintances that I was leaving to hop on the train with a one-way ticket eastwards. Since then, I have not had any regrets on this decision and it started a continuing host of extraordinary experiences. I would be Grateful if you joined me as I chronicle this journey on this website!